The most wonderful time of the year

School is back in session, not a minute too soon. We actually had a good summer, the kids were busy with the classes put on by the city. Six weeks of break would be perfect, the last two weeks we are all bored and crazy. I have to write down this funny story about Dax. I was taking him to his summer science class where they made robots, and goo and stuff he loves. We passed this lady on the sidewalk who was smoking. Dax in his voice of disgust says "Did you see that lady smoking?? That is horrible. It is one thing for a man to smoke but for a lady, that is just a sexual offense" I started laughing out loud. He has no idea what a real sexual offense is.

Dax is in 5th grade, Miss Roe is his teacher. Although I really like their school, and it is an excellent school I kept hearing the 5th grade teachers are nothing to brag about. So I really didn't care who Dax got for a teacher. She seems ok although I was bugged when we got the e-mail for the supplies list of ordinary stuff like pencils, glue,kleenix, hand sanitizer, zip lock backs yada yada and gift cards to Office Max or Target would be appreciated. No I don't think so. I already spent a ton just on the basics for the classroom. I'm not about to send the teacher on her own shopping spree.
Derek is in 1st grade and Mrs. Dowdy is his teacher. I think she is good enough. I know she had previously taught Kindergarten. Derek gets kind of an attitude in school and if he doesn't want to do his work, he just tells his teacher "I don't feel like it" I had several conferences with his Kindergarten teacher being concerned about him going to first grade. We worked with him all summer and seems to be doing much better.

A Decade Gone By

Dax had birthday #10- on July 19th. We can't hardly believe it. He had a great day. He re-opened Lego Harry Potter (because Curtis bought it for him early, the day the game came out). Then he also got a Nintendo DSi. His old DS was well-loved and falling apart. Now he has the new and improved version. He loves it, it takes pictures and does cool stuff that the old one didn't do, besides it is shiny and new. Then we had a few of his friends over for swimming, pizza, and cake. I love summer birthdays. They are so easy.

Getting ready to blow the candles out.

L-Westin Thomas, Derek Johnson, Thomas Smith, Dax Johnson, Ethan Savoldi, Dallin Thomas, Tate Seeley. This swim party was thrown together at the last minute. We thought Curtis might be going to San Diego so he would take Dax and Derek and have some fun with them at the beach, Lego land, etc. Those plans fell through so we decided to do this at the last minute. Tate had been out of town with his family when his mom got the e-mail/ invite for the party. She told me that they would be flying in that morning, but Tate would be back in time for the party. When Tate showed up his mom apologized that they didn't have time to get a gift, which was totally acceptable and I told her a gift wasn't even necessary. The next day we found a gift by the front door from Tate. I had Dax write Thank you notes to his friends. This is what he wrote to Tate.

Thanks a lot for coming to the party, Tate. Also thanks for the late-but-still gift. It couldn't have been good without you. Your Friend, Daxton.

I told Becky, Tate's mom, I was embarrassed to send that Thank you note. I know Dax didn't intend to sound rude, but it still did. She laughed and said she still wanted to see the note. Dax's comments always keep us on our toes. So we mailed it anyway.

Hammer time

A few weeks back I was browsing the newspaper and I saw a small ad that said MC Hammer was coming on July 1st. I jokingly mentioned it to Curtis, not thinking he would have any interest in it. After all, it was 20 years ago that Hammer was in his prime, then we all know he went bankrupt, lost everything, and has not done anything musically in years. Besides the concert was at one of the casinos. Not exactly a nice venue. 

Curtis was excited and immediately wanted to go. I had no idea he was such a fan. We did watch his reality show on TV last year, but I have never witnessed Curtis listen to his music, or even see any evidence of owning any. I actually did have one of his albums back in 1990. 

 So we set out to Ft. McDowell casino, and they told us we could buy tickets when we get there. There were still plenty left. We get to the smoke-filled smelly Casino and are amongst the hopeless souls who find Casinos promising. We get our VIP tickets and go to check out where the concert is. Oh no!! It is outside in July in Phoenix on fold-up chairs. We were dressed for an indoor concert with AC. We have plenty of time so we go look for food. We end up in this huge buffet line. All the people in line around us are regulars and are complaining that they drove all the way up to the casino and they are not having the regular Friday night Crab legs, they continue to tell us about how they are going to enter the poker contests after the buffet. 

 These people were plenty nice to us telling us the ropes of the casino, but they also came across as someone you would find working the carnival in town. We're getting all this info as a drunk yells at the live band to turn the music down. We are starting to think this is a really bad idea. By the time the concert starts the sun has gone down and there is a decent breeze. They also passed out those frozen scarves you wear around your neck to keep you cool. The concert crowd came for the concert, not the casino. Much more pleasant to be around. . The first group that came out was SWV. We thought we had never heard of them, but we actually had heard some of their songs back in the 1990s. I thought they did a good job performing, but between songs, they would let us know how extremely hot they were. They said they were from Atlanta, and I don't think they expected this dry heat. They were actually pretty funny about it. They loved their white spandex pants. 

 Now MC Hammer comes out. He was great. He was wearing a tuxedo instead of his baggy, crotch to the knees hammer time pants. He was still a great performer and dancer. He brought about 12 dancers, who were amazing. One of them was his 15 yr old son, who we recognized from watching his reality show. They all came out in Tuxedos. I said they will lose those by the end of the night. I don't know how they were up there on that hot stage under the lights dancing around like that. 

 Gradually his dancers started losing the suits. First, the jackets were gone, then the shirt, then the tank top. Then the tank tops got thrown to the crowd. Hammer kept the full tuxedo on the entire night. I don't know how. Towards the end of the concert, someone came down to the audience and started asking people if they wanted to go up on stage. Curtis went up. When he started to do "U Can't touch this", they let all the people on stage to boggy with Hammer. 

Curtis on stage with MC Hammer

 I think the dancers were tired at this point and not putting on the show that they were earlier in the night. It ended up being a really fun night, worth putting up with the casino riff-raff.